id Software has laid off roughly half its staff, according to a report from Game Developer, which puts the cut at approximately 90 jobs. Michael Maynard, a former id staffer, corroborated the 50% figure in a LinkedIn post cited by Engadget. Neither Microsoft nor id Software had formally confirmed the layoffs as of that report.

The cuts land at the Doom studio days after it shipped an expansion for Doom: The Dark Ages, the shooter it launched in 2025, on July 7, 2026. They form part of a much larger restructuring across Microsoft's Xbox division. Xbox boss Asha Sharma announced 3,200 total layoffs, with 1,600 taking effect immediately and another 1,600 planned over the coming months, and disclosed that four studios are exiting Xbox for new ownership entirely, per IGN. Bethesda, ZeniMax, and Obsidian Entertainment were also hit, according to GamesIndustry.biz. Insider Gaming's Andrew Highton independently reported the 50% id Software figure as part of the same wave of cuts.

Bloomberg reported that ZeniMax Media, id's parent company, will narrow its focus to its largest franchises: The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, and Doom, as cited by Engadget. Bethesda's leadership told staff the studio "needs to change course" and must concentrate on its "strongest franchises," per IGN. Not every ZeniMax studio was touched: MachineGames, currently developing a new Wolfenstein title, came through the round without cuts, IGN reported. Xbox's CEO framed the restructuring in terms of division-wide health, telling staff "I think our core has to be healthy," according to Game Developer.

The layoffs carry particular weight at id Software because the studio is unionized. Its wall-to-wall bargaining unit, affiliated with the Communications Workers of America, was voluntarily recognized by Microsoft in 2025 under a labor neutrality agreement — one of the more notable outcomes of Microsoft's broader stance toward organizing labor after its Activision Blizzard acquisition. More than a year later, id's union members and Microsoft have still not reached a first collective bargaining agreement, per Engadget. CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said Microsoft "slow-walked union members at the bargaining table," which he said denied them access to contract protections that a completed agreement would have provided, a statement echoed in a CWA press release. CWA Vice President Mike Davis said the union will demand "immediate bargaining" over "fair severance" terms for affected members.

That timing detail is worth flagging on its own terms: a workforce that organized specifically to gain a seat at the table for decisions like this one is now confronting a major layoff without a ratified contract in place. Whether that changes the calculus for other recently unionized studios inside Microsoft's stable, or for game workers considering organizing elsewhere, is a live question the industry will be watching closely.

John Romero, id Software's co-creator and the designer most associated with the original Doom and Doom II, responded publicly to the reports by saying he hopes people are preserving id Software's history, per Kotaku. Romero left id in 1996 and has no operational role at the studio today, but his comment reflects a broader unease among longtime industry figures about institutional memory at a studio now more than three decades old.

The scale of Microsoft's Xbox restructuring — 3,200 positions, four studios departing for new management, and a marquee unionized studio losing half its headcount within a year of its labor agreement — sits at an unusual intersection for the games industry. Consolidation waves after major acquisitions are not new; what is comparatively new is watching one collide directly with an active, unresolved union bargaining process at a studio with the cultural standing of id Software. In this author's view, the resolution of that bargaining dispute, more than the headcount number itself, is the detail worth tracking in the weeks ahead, since it will signal how much practical leverage newly organized studios actually have when a parent company decides to restructure around it.

For now, ZeniMax's stated strategy is narrower and franchise-driven: Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, and Doom carry the portfolio forward, with MachineGames' new Wolfenstein project as the clearest evidence that development continues even as headcount contracts elsewhere. Doom's expansion shipped the same week roughly half the team that built it was laid off. Microsoft and id Software have not issued formal statements confirming the numbers reported by Game Developer, Engadget, and Insider Gaming.